


The Light of Your Own Being

by S3C



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Soul Mate AU, Suicide, soul mate tattoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:56:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S3C/pseuds/S3C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite himself, Enjolras is excited to discover the tattoo that will appear on his eighteenth birthday and give him his first glimpse of his soul mate. Grantaire is.... less excited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light of Your Own Being

**Author's Note:**

> On your eighteenth birthday, a tattoo appears which is in some way related to your soul mate. However, if your soul mate dies, the tattoo disappears with them.  
> This was written at one in the morning, fueled by self-loathing and insomnia. Enjoy.....  
> Title from My Brilliant Image - Hafiz  
> I wish I could show you,  
> When you are lonely or in darkness,  
> The astonishing Light  
> Of your own Being!

Enjolras’ eighteenth birthday is a quiet affair. He eats dinner with his parents, and after opening a few presents and fielding their polite small talk about his day, he dashes up to his room, and waits for it to appear. It’s stupid to be excited about it, he knows it is, but he is anyway.

It’s also stupid to be disappointed, but he can’t help it when a small wine bottle appears on the inside of his wrist. 

Well, at least the watch his father brought him would be of some use now.

 

~~~

R wakes probably sometime mid-afternoon, judging by the way the sun streams through his blinds. His clock is broken, so he can’t know for sure. His head is pounding something awful, but if it’s mid-afternoon, then that means he slept for 21 hours, or there about. He catches sight of something in the cracked mirror when he passes on his way to find some aspirin. A new tattoo. Probably he got too wasted to remember, but it doesn’t seem like something he’d choose, even in a drunken state. It’s a brilliant yellow sun, decorated in spirals. He turns and prises open the window. Wincing as the sun hits his face, he hollers down to a passing person

“Oy! What’s the date today?” He picks on a random pedestrian.

“Uh, May 15th!” The man yells back, looking mildly concerned.

“Ta!” Grantaire ducks back in the window. The fifteenth. That means he was eighteen yesterday. Which means, that that is his soul mate tattoo. He goes back to the mirror to inspect the pattern on his left bicep, before deciding that he doesn’t really care. He finds some aspirin, and falls back into bed.

 

~~~

The questions from nosy relatives and curious friends stop after a while. He saw no point in lying, so he told the truth, but regretted it all the same. It could mean something else. They could somehow meet through a bottle of wine, Enjolras fantasises. But more likely than not, it means his soul mate is a drunkard.

He wears the watch everywhere he goes now, thankful that the strap is thick enough to cover the bottle.

 

~~~

There are bills that need to be paid. There are more angry letters from his father, demanding to be paid for all the years that he kept Grantaire. It makes R laugh out loud. His electricity cuts out, and his water soon after. Grantaire just finishes his bottle and smashes it against the wall. One after another, eviction notices pour through the letter box, so R smashes some more bottles against the walls, since they won’t be his walls much longer. More bills. More angry letters from his father. And still no job. There was, however, more alcohol. But that was just about it.

 

~~~

"You were supposed to be the light of my life." R tells the tattoo very seriously. "Bit late for that now." He shrugs, running his fingers over it. "Bit late for everything now." He whispers again. 

~~~

Enjolras goes to take his watch off before he goes to bed, dropping it on the nightstand and swinging his legs under the covers before he freezes. He checks his wrist, and double checks again. The tattoo is gone. He checks the other wrist, then leaps up to check the rest of his body in the mirror. But he can’t find that damnable wine bottle. It’s gone. Completely gone. He’s heard of this sort of thing happening. It’s rare, but it happens.

If your soul mate dies, the tattoo disappears with them.

Enjolras climbs back into bed, feeling oddly numb. The love of his life has just died. They never even got to meet and he’s dead. He falls asleep thinking of all the ways he could have possibly died.

When he wakes up, he pulls out his laptop, fuelled by a morbid curiosity, and starts to search. Recent death of a young man, most likely an alcoholic. He scrolls through news pages and obituaries, nothing fitting the description. Until he reaches one man, eighteen like himself, with curly brown hair, and blue eyes. He could be handsome, if he cut his hair and took a shower once in a while. But the bags under his bloodshot eyes are thick and heavy, and he doesn’t look sober in the photograph. The other photograph shows a bridge. The bridge he had thrown himself off.

Of all the possibilities to run through his head, suicide had never been one of them. He had never imagined that his soul mate would willingly die, without meeting him at all. Hadn’t he been curious to see the man behind the tattoo that had appeared?

Evidently not. Enjolras snapped his laptop shut again, and muffled his face in the pillow. When he fell back asleep, he dreamt of a man with brown curls and icy blue eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is probably so shit. The wonders of writing at 1am. Apologies. I might edit this when i am more awake, if I deem it worthy....


End file.
